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GroundTruth Blog

This is a very different post-election blog than the one I planned to write. I was going to call the new president's attention to the political importance of food and farming, highlighting the fact that how we grow our food directly impacts the health of our families, the well-being of our communities and the future of our planet. All of that is still true, but the political winds have dramatically shifted.
I planned to urge the new president to be courageous in the face of pressure from powerful corporate interests, to block further consolidation of the pesticide/seed industry, and to take... Read More

Does glyphosate cause cancer? That's the question Monsanto is desperately trying to prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from answering. With governments around the globe recently divided on how to regulate glyphosate, Monsanto’s spin machine is in overdrive trying to discredit anyone who suggests their biggest moneymaker is toxic to human health.
Its latest target is EPA, which is currently convening a Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) to determine whether to list glyphosate as a carcinogen.
Monsanto isn’t leaving anything to chance — or to science. The big bad chemical... Read More

In early October, thousands of concerned community members across the country joined PAN, Toxic Taters, Corporate Accountability International (CAI) and other allies to participate in the “Farm to Family: Pesticide Free” National Week of Action.
The goal of the seven days of concentrated activity was to make an invisible problem visible, and stand with rural communities in potato-growing country to demand that McDonald’s deal with its pesticide problem.
McDonald’s continues to source potatoes grown with drift-prone pesticides that put the health of nearby rural and Indigenous... Read More

Ignoring the science, California regulators just approved even more use of Dow's fumigant pesticide, Telone. Already the second most widely used pesticide near schools in the state, cancer-causing Telone is applied primarily on strawberry fields and root vegetable crops.
Under new rules, growers can now apply 46,000 more pounds of Telone per “township” (a six-by-six-mile area) near schoolkids, farmworkers and rural families. As a gaseous fumigant, this pesticide can persist in the air for days at a time and — as noted by UCLA’s acclaimed toxicologist Dr. John Froines — is found to... Read More

On October 15, the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance awarded the Food Sovereignty Prize to two grassroots activist groups — the Farmworker Association of Florida and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa — for furthering food democracy. The prize recognizes these two organizations for prioritizing the rights of women, Indigenous people, people of color, migrant workers and other too-often marginalized producers in our global food system.
First awarded in 2009, this prize is an alternative to the World Food Prize, which has historically celebrated a model of industrialized agriculture that... Read More

Monsanto's herbicide glyphosate is once again in the spotlight. Cancer experts will be reviewing the science on glyphosate for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) later in 2016, at a meeting that was recently postponed from its original October date. This week, PAN International released a review of the current science on the herbicide's health and environmental effects.
And glyphosate will be a key item on the agenda of this weekend's Monsanto tribunal, an event in The Hague convened by non-governmental organizations to put the mega-corporation on trial for human rights abuses.... Read More

All eyes are on Monsanto this month, and not just because of its pending mega-merger with Bayer. A formal tribunal this weekend will assess how the giant corporation has affected human rights around the globe. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking a closer look at RoundUp's potential to cause cancer, while a growing number of groups around the world are advocating to severely restrict the use of Monsanto's flagship herbicide.
Let's hope that shining several spotlights at once on Monsanto will ensure it is held accountable for the harms it imposes on people and planet... Read More

In the midst of September’s busy harvest, California farmers and gardeners received good news from the state capitol. Governor Jerry Brown signed two important amendments to the California Seed Law that critically support the practices of farmers who do not use genetically-engineered (GE) seed or the pesticides that go with them.
These new provisions faced strong corporate opposition. Governor Brown fought the muscle of GE seed and chemical corporations Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and others (teamed together in the California Seed Association) to get this legislation to the finish line.... Read More